(10-28-2018 08:00 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  

(10-28-2018 07:52 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(10-28-2018 07:43 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  

(10-28-2018 05:56 PM)Ricefootballnet Wrote:  

(10-28-2018 09:56 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  OTOH, they gave up 17in 44:56.. I think the back breaker was the PF penalty when we had them stopped and punting. Made the defense play another 10 or so play, gave up point, and the offense started going three and out after that.

You’re right in my opinion, OO. I was there, right next to the bench, when this bullsh*t call came in. It was as if the air had been let out of a tire. Recall that it was right at this time that we pretty much abandoned the blitz. After six PFs, they were gonna call something, and keep calling it.

The Adrenalin drained, and what was left was fatigue. I talked to a buddy after the game who’s a Rice football letterman and a parent of a recent Rice football lettermen, and it said that he thought, in the fourth quarter, once we more or less had our smash mouth style of play taken away from us, it was like seeing “a bunch of big-*ssed grown men beating up on just a bunch of young boys.”

OK. So while the Owls were playing their "smash mouth style of play", the Owls were being penalized frequently, but holding their own on the scoreboard. When the Owls abandoned that style to avoid the penalties, UNT scores 21 unanswered in the 4Q. That's some unconventional wisdom.

Look, it's all just excuses until the Owls can overcome both the opponent and the lousy CUSA refs. That's what good teams do. The Owls aren't a good team yet, but the play, at times, of the freshman, on both sides of the ball, gives some hope that progress is being made.

Ok they are not a good team, but that bad team played even with a good team until we abandoned our game plan.

If plan A is working, even with penalties, why abandon it?

It seems like they need to overcome the opponent, the bad refs, AND their coaching staff.

The goal is to win the game, not to avoid penalties.

As I said, unconventional wisdom.

FTR - I hate that tag line.

Yeah, I agree. But, I think Intellectual Brutality is worse. I don't like the connotations of "brutality". Isn't that something that brutes do?

(10-28-2018 09:11 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(10-28-2018 08:00 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  

(10-28-2018 07:52 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(10-28-2018 07:43 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  

(10-28-2018 05:56 PM)Ricefootballnet Wrote:  You’re right in my opinion, OO. I was there, right next to the bench, when this bullsh*t call came in. It was as if the air had been let out of a tire. Recall that it was right at this time that we pretty much abandoned the blitz. After six PFs, they were gonna call something, and keep calling it.

The Adrenalin drained, and what was left was fatigue. I talked to a buddy after the game who’s a Rice football letterman and a parent of a recent Rice football lettermen, and it said that he thought, in the fourth quarter, once we more or less had our smash mouth style of play taken away from us, it was like seeing “a bunch of big-*ssed grown men beating up on just a bunch of young boys.”

OK. So while the Owls were playing their "smash mouth style of play", the Owls were being penalized frequently, but holding their own on the scoreboard. When the Owls abandoned that style to avoid the penalties, UNT scores 21 unanswered in the 4Q. That's some unconventional wisdom.

Look, it's all just excuses until the Owls can overcome both the opponent and the lousy CUSA refs. That's what good teams do. The Owls aren't a good team yet, but the play, at times, of the freshman, on both sides of the ball, gives some hope that progress is being made.

Ok they are not a good team, but that bad team played even with a good team until we abandoned our game plan.

If plan A is working, even with penalties, why abandon it?

It seems like they need to overcome the opponent, the bad refs, AND their coaching staff.

The goal is to win the game, not to avoid penalties.

As I said, unconventional wisdom.

FTR - I hate that tag line.

Yeah, I agree. But, I think Intellectual Brutality is worse. I don't like the connotations of "brutality". Isn't that something that brutes do?

(10-28-2018 08:00 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  

(10-28-2018 07:52 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(10-28-2018 07:43 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  

(10-28-2018 05:56 PM)Ricefootballnet Wrote:  

(10-28-2018 09:56 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  OTOH, they gave up 17in 44:56.. I think the back breaker was the PF penalty when we had them stopped and punting. Made the defense play another 10 or so play, gave up point, and the offense started going three and out after that.

You’re right in my opinion, OO. I was there, right next to the bench, when this bullsh*t call came in. It was as if the air had been let out of a tire. Recall that it was right at this time that we pretty much abandoned the blitz. After six PFs, they were gonna call something, and keep calling it.

The Adrenalin drained, and what was left was fatigue. I talked to a buddy after the game who’s a Rice football letterman and a parent of a recent Rice football lettermen, and it said that he thought, in the fourth quarter, once we more or less had our smash mouth style of play taken away from us, it was like seeing “a bunch of big-*ssed grown men beating up on just a bunch of young boys.”

OK. So while the Owls were playing their "smash mouth style of play", the Owls were being penalized frequently, but holding their own on the scoreboard. When the Owls abandoned that style to avoid the penalties, UNT scores 21 unanswered in the 4Q. That's some unconventional wisdom.

Look, it's all just excuses until the Owls can overcome both the opponent and the lousy CUSA refs. That's what good teams do. The Owls aren't a good team yet, but the play, at times, of the freshman, on both sides of the ball, gives some hope that progress is being made.

Ok they are not a good team, but that bad team played even with a good team until we abandoned our game plan.

If plan A is working, even with penalties, why abandon it?

It seems like they need to overcome the opponent, the bad refs, AND their coaching staff.

The goal is to win the game, not to avoid penalties.

As I said, unconventional wisdom.

FTR - I hate that tag line.

"Look, it's all just excuses until the Owls can overcome both the opponent and the lousy CUSA refs. That's what good teams do. The Owls aren't a good team yet, but the play, at times, of the freshman, on both sides of the ball, gives some hope that progress is being made."

"FTR - I hate that tag line"

Agree wholeheartedly with both statements.

I actually like "intellectual brutality." Reduced to its basic elements, football is a brutal game. This ain't "drop the handkerchief." Combining intellect and brutality is something that places like Stanford and Notre Dame understand.

I guess everybody has their own idea of what "brutality" means. For me, it conveys an image of a WW II Japanese POW camp.

Football may be a brutal game, compared to tennis or swimming. But there are rules to reduce the brutality - rules against late hits, roughing the passer/punter, face masks, etc.

(10-28-2018 09:23 PM)Intellectual_Brutality Wrote:  

(10-28-2018 09:11 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(10-28-2018 08:00 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  

(10-28-2018 07:52 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(10-28-2018 07:43 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  OK. So while the Owls were playing their "smash mouth style of play", the Owls were being penalized frequently, but holding their own on the scoreboard. When the Owls abandoned that style to avoid the penalties, UNT scores 21 unanswered in the 4Q. That's some unconventional wisdom.

Look, it's all just excuses until the Owls can overcome both the opponent and the lousy CUSA refs. That's what good teams do. The Owls aren't a good team yet, but the play, at times, of the freshman, on both sides of the ball, gives some hope that progress is being made.

Ok they are not a good team, but that bad team played even with a good team until we abandoned our game plan.

If plan A is working, even with penalties, why abandon it?

It seems like they need to overcome the opponent, the bad refs, AND their coaching staff.

The goal is to win the game, not to avoid penalties.

As I said, unconventional wisdom.

FTR - I hate that tag line.

Yeah, I agree. But, I think Intellectual Brutality is worse. I don't like the connotations of "brutality". Isn't that something that brutes do?

As a slogan, I mean.

(10-27-2018 07:51 PM)ATXowl Wrote:  That is enjoyable football, score didn’t reflect the effort. We know the future is in the young Quarterbacks!

1) Green played well... As did Marshman in his first outing.. As did Stankavage in his first couple of outings... and believe it or not, as did Tyner in his first outing a couple years ago.... The Parliament has just copied and pasted itself from each of those performances. I hope after a couple films accumulate, and after the coaches expand the playbook from Junior Varsity complex to Friday night in Class 4A Texas complex that Wiley is able to keep it going.....

2) Oh... He played well on his first drive and the first qtr and maybe 5:00 of the 2nd And after a lot of nothing in the middle, he made a couple nice plays in the 4th. After that it was an exercise in "don't throw no INT's and coach don't call no plays where we might throw INT's". But the Ghost is glad the young man played well. I hope he continues to do so up until injury or another Freshman on campus next year.

3) 17-17 game with 13:00 to go... the QB turns it over...UNT scores one hundred straight points... But you're right.. we've found our guy... It's a joke wrapped up in a comedy packaged inside a spoof delivered with a parity.

Coach Bloom... You've shown us you like the zone power toss on 2nd and 9 out of 22 personnel... Now show us you can recruit, because all your eggs are in that basket and at this point, the little white speck on top of chicken poop is also chicken poop...

But hey... I'm glad to be a fan of a program that knows itself (as evidenced by comments such as "enjoyable football"... Would hate to wake up today an Aggie or Longhorn and expect actual wins

Since the game was in town, I went Saturday. A few random observations that aren't necessarily news breaking, but more confirmation of some things others have said:

I thought the defense looked really good when they were bringing pressure, and not so good when we tried to play coverage. Tackling remains a problem, and there were multiple times when we left a wide open receiver in a hole about 20 yards down-field. But there were a lot of stand up and cheer moments for the defense.

I thought the offense looked OK. I liked some of the play calling that got away from run, run, pass (on 3rd & long), punt in the first half. We tried to get back to that in the second half though. Our passing game needs to do more than throw the out route, but with the Green freshman QB, I figure that was to keep him out of trouble. Still, on 3rd and 3 and single heads up coverage on Cephus, I would like to see a 3-step slant that requires an accurate 10 yard throw, rather than an accurate 30 yard throw on the out (which we missed twice when we needed it). I thought Green played well for a first start. We shall see how that goes, but I will give him the benefit of the doubt.

We had 3 QBs at the game who warmed up - Green, Tyner and Towns. All 3 looked good in warm-ups and all 3 can throw the ball well to routes on air. Green looks to be the smallest, but all have good size. That leads me to this: whoever convinced Bloom that if Green goes down we can use Trammel and Octaviao in wildcat as a backup QB needs to lose their paycheck for the week. I would love to know of the 12-15 times we ran wildcat how many times we gained more than 2 yards, if any. I suspect that answer is less than 25% of the time. We need to get Tyner or Towns ready to play in the backup spot and not waste practice and game reps on the wildcat nonsense.

Similarly, whoever is telling Bloom that we can run toss up the middle needs some up-downs. That looks like our favorite play, and it rarely works. I don't understand line blocking well enough to know what they are trying to do and not doing, but we haven't successfully run that play against anyone we have played. Let's move on to something else and try again next season with some different personnel if we love it so much. Both of those offensive issues put us in 3rd and long situations throughout the game. I felt like our defense was on the field too much late in the game due to the offense not moving the ball (or the fumble by Green - which didn't look like a fumble to me).

I thought the officiating was awful and one-sided - particularly on judgment calls (personal fouls)! I go to A LOT of HS football games and a Friday night crew with the benefit of replay would have been much better than what we saw Saturday. I also thought the atmosphere for the game was great. First time I have ever been to a UNT game, but they put on a good show. It seems like a weird school academically. Other than teachers, I am not sure what they are known for.

(10-29-2018 08:57 AM)Rice FB Fan Wrote:  Other than teachers, I am not sure what they are known for.

Music school.

https://www.unt.edu/rankings/college-music

Maybe not traditional symphony areas, but jazz and film/tv music is well-recognized. Not sure how their band was this weekend, but they were very good when they visited when I was at Rice.

(10-29-2018 08:13 AM)Neelys Ghost Wrote:  .. Now show us you can recruit, because all your eggs are in that basket

Blind squirrel found an acorn. For once, NG is right.

(10-29-2018 08:57 AM)Rice FB Fan Wrote:  Since the game was in town, I went Saturday. A few random observations that aren't necessarily news breaking, but more confirmation of some things others have said:

I thought the defense looked really good when they were bringing pressure, and not so good when we tried to play coverage. Tackling remains a problem, and there were multiple times when we left a wide open receiver in a hole about 20 yards down-field. But there were a lot of stand up and cheer moments for the defense.

I thought the offense looked OK. I liked some of the play calling that got away from run, run, pass (on 3rd & long), punt in the first half. We tried to get back to that in the second half though. Our passing game needs to do more than throw the out route, but with the Green freshman QB, I figure that was to keep him out of trouble. Still, on 3rd and 3 and single heads up coverage on Cephus, I would like to see a 3-step slant that requires an accurate 10 yard throw, rather than an accurate 30 yard throw on the out (which we missed twice when we needed it). I thought Green played well for a first start. We shall see how that goes, but I will give him the benefit of the doubt.

We had 3 QBs at the game who warmed up - Green, Tyner and Towns. All 3 looked good in warm-ups and all 3 can throw the ball well to routes on air. Green looks to be the smallest, but all have good size. That leads me to this: whoever convinced Bloom that if Green goes down we can use Trammel and Octaviao in wildcat as a backup QB needs to lose their paycheck for the week. I would love to know of the 12-15 times we ran wildcat how many times we gained more than 2 yards, if any. I suspect that answer is less than 25% of the time. We need to get Tyner or Towns ready to play in the backup spot and not waste practice and game reps on the wildcat nonsense.

Similarly, whoever is telling Bloom that we can run toss up the middle needs some up-downs. That looks like our favorite play, and it rarely works. I don't understand line blocking well enough to know what they are trying to do and not doing, but we haven't successfully run that play against anyone we have played. Let's move on to something else and try again next season with some different personnel if we love it so much. Both of those offensive issues put us in 3rd and long situations throughout the game. I felt like our defense was on the field too much late in the game due to the offense not moving the ball (or the fumble by Green - which didn't look like a fumble to me).

I thought the officiating was awful and one-sided - particularly on judgment calls (personal fouls)! I go to A LOT of HS football games and a Friday night crew with the benefit of replay would have been much better than what we saw Saturday. I also thought the atmosphere for the game was great. First time I have ever been to a UNT game, but they put on a good show. It seems like a weird school academically. Other than teachers, I am not sure what they are known for.

Nice summary.

(10-29-2018 09:25 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(10-29-2018 08:13 AM)Neelys Ghost Wrote:  .. Now show us you can recruit, because all your eggs are in that basket

Blind squirrel found an acorn. For once, NG is right.

Oh come on now... You've implied more times than you're willing to admit that I'm right... I'm not looking for a showering of acknowledgement, just a hat tip...

(10-29-2018 10:05 AM)Neelys Ghost Wrote:  

(10-29-2018 09:25 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(10-29-2018 08:13 AM)Neelys Ghost Wrote:  .. Now show us you can recruit, because all your eggs are in that basket

Blind squirrel found an acorn. For once, NG is right.

Oh come on now... You've implied more times than you're willing to admit that I'm right... I'm not looking for a showering of acknowledgement, just a hat tip...

Already gave you that. See above.

I think you are wrong more than you are right, but when you are right, I have no problem saying so.

I definitely think he has to recruit at an "A" level this year.

Just to clarify...Otoviano ran the wildcat. His three carries on the first drive were for 4, 8 and 9 yards....he had 10 carries of 2 or more yards including carries of 8, 9 and 19 yards....Total for the game of 17 carries for 68 yards...a 4.0 yard per carry average.

(10-29-2018 12:35 PM)Houston Owl Wrote:  Just to clarify...Otoviano ran the wildcat. His three carries on the first drive were for 4, 8 and 9 yards....he had 10 carries of 2 or more yards including carries of 8, 9 and 19 yards....Total for the game of 17 carries for 68 yards...a 4.0 yard per carry average.

Oh, come on, you know that's a perception thing. Any time we run the ball, that's just running into the middle of the line--whether it is in fact up the middle or off-tackle or even around the end, and regardless of how we block it. And anything that doesn't break away is a 2-yard gain.

(10-29-2018 12:35 PM)Houston Owl Wrote:  Just to clarify...Otoviano ran the wildcat. His three carries on the first drive were for 4, 8 and 9 yards....he had 10 carries of 2 or more yards including carries of 8, 9 and 19 yards....Total for the game of 17 carries for 68 yards...a 4.0 yard per carry average.

Sitting in the stands, wildcat did not feel like a good substitute for an actual QB if Green were to go down. Here were his yards per run: 4,8,9,1,-2,1,1,3,-2,10,0,4,3,2,1,19,2.

This is not anything negative to the kid, more a commentary on how wildcat is not an offensive scheme eliminating the need for an actual QB except in peewee league when you can just out athlete the other team with one guy. In big kid football, it is a situational formation.

(10-29-2018 01:36 PM)Rice FB Fan Wrote:  

(10-29-2018 12:35 PM)Houston Owl Wrote:  Just to clarify...Otoviano ran the wildcat. His three carries on the first drive were for 4, 8 and 9 yards....he had 10 carries of 2 or more yards including carries of 8, 9 and 19 yards....Total for the game of 17 carries for 68 yards...a 4.0 yard per carry average.

Sitting in the stands, wildcat did not feel like a good substitute for an actual QB if Green were to go down. Here were his yards per run: 4,8,9,1,-2,1,1,3,-2,10,0,4,3,2,1,19,2.

This is not anything negative to the kid, more a commentary on how wildcat is not an offensive scheme eliminating the need for an actual QB except in peewee league when you can just out athlete the other team with one guy. In big kid football, it is a situational formation.

This is a situation wherein the median is more relevant than the average. The average (thanks mainly to a 19 yard run) was a respectable 4.0; the median attempt was just 2 yards.

Owl 69/70/75 was being snarky with his comment about everything being a 2 yard gain, but that was the median gain.

Someone asked about the inside toss play earlier... I've seen the Owls Base block it, they've zoned it and still kicked the DE, and a few times they've actually down and kicked which was the way I thought it was supposed to be run. But oddly, it's base scheme with a FB... which makes sense why a run thru LB makes the play so often... (For the record, the blind hog is right again)

The offense is what it is... It's West Coast pass schemes with "Stanford power run".... If they get the right guys in there, they'll run it better one day. But, they've committed to "brute forcing" their way over defenses, so they have to find big big big OL willing to come to Rice and run block... Texas don't exactly have high school programs outside of Katy that run that type of scheme abundantly. Any OL recruits in Texas that truly fit the "Intellectual Brutality" bill are likely in spread schemes. But, if they're in a spread scheme and good enough to maul D'Lineman, they're probably getting recruited by the Big 12 or actually Stanford itself....

I appreciate the "vision", but I don't see Texas High Schools producing tons of Linebackers who are great college players in the Big 12 either. this is spread country. "Intellectual Brutality" might be hard to come by in the culture and state of football in Big 12 and UH country... It's a speed state... pure and simple....

But... I'm sure Katy's 8th, 9th, and 10th lineman are good enough to come to Rice and develop into a serviceable if not mildly brutal OL...

(10-29-2018 02:00 PM)Neelys Ghost Wrote:  Someone asked about the inside toss play earlier... I've seen the Owls Base block it, they've zoned it and still kicked the DE, and a few times they've actually down and kicked which was the way I thought it was supposed to be run. But oddly, it's base scheme with a FB... which makes sense why a run thru LB makes the play so often... (For the record, the blind hog is right again)

The offense is what it is... It's West Coast pass schemes with "Stanford power run".... If they get the right guys in there, they'll run it better one day. But, they've committed to "brute forcing" their way over defenses, so they have to find big big big OL willing to come to Rice and run block... Texas don't exactly have high school programs outside of Katy that run that type of scheme abundantly. Any OL recruits in Texas that truly fit the "Intellectual Brutality" bill are likely in spread schemes. But, if they're in a spread scheme and good enough to maul D'Lineman, they're probably getting recruited by the Big 12 or actually Stanford itself....

I appreciate the "vision", but I don't see Texas High Schools producing tons of Linebackers who are great college players in the Big 12 either. this is spread country. "Intellectual Brutality" might be hard to come by in the culture and state of football in Big 12 and UH country... It's a speed state... pure and simple....

But... I'm sure Katy's 8th, 9th, and 10th lineman are good enough to come to Rice and develop into a serviceable if not mildly brutal OL...

It sure ISN'T West Coast passing schemes

(10-28-2018 09:11 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(10-28-2018 08:00 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  As I said, unconventional wisdom.

FTR - I hate that tag line.

Yeah, I agree. But, I think Intellectual Brutality is worse. I don't like the connotations of "brutality". Isn't that something that brutes do?

Your sensibility reminds me one of my favorite comments by Winston Churchill, eschewing mercilessness as a method of war. In an October 1939 broadcast, after the fall of Poland, he mentioned (among other things) the British response to the German U-boat onslaught. He told the nation that the British had suffered losses, "But the Royal Navy has immediately attacked the U-boats and is hunting them night and day -- I will not say without mercy, because God forbid we should ever part company with that -- but at any rate with zeal, and not altogether without relish."

That seems like a fair aim. And one can almost hear the relish with which he would have said the word "relish".